Justice Department agrees to pay ex-Trump adviser Michael Flynn in settlement over wrongful prosecution lawsuit
By Hannah Rabinowitz, Casey Gannon, CNN
(CNN) — The Justice Department has reached a settlement with Michael Flynn, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser who sued the government for millions of dollars over what he alleged to be a wrongful prosecution.
In a brief court filing Wednesday, lawyers for both Flynn and the Justice Department said they reached an agreement to drop the lawsuit and for Flynn to receive “settlement funds.” While the filing did not include the amount of money, or elaborate on any other terms of the settlement, a person familiar with the matter said Flynn would receive more than $1 million in the agreement.
Flynn sued the government for $50 million, alleging that the FBI tried to entrap him in the early days of the Trump administration.
The accusations in Flynn’s lawsuit stemmed from a criminal case brought in December 2017 — during Trump’s first year in office — in which Flynn admitted to lying to the FBI about his interactions with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and in a Justice Department disclosure regarding his lobbying firm’s work for Turkey a year earlier. He agreed at the time to cooperate in the Mueller investigation, and helped special counsel Robert Mueller piece together several instances where it was later alleged President Donald Trump attempted to obstruct the investigation.
Just before he was set to be sentenced, Flynn asked the judge overseeing his prosecution to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea. The Justice Department later moved to drop the case against him, and Flynn was pardoned by Trump.
“Those who instigated the Russia Collusion Hoax and Crossfire Hurricane abused their power to mislead the American people and tarnish the reputations of President Trump and his supporters,” a Justice Department spokesperson told CNN in a statement.
“Today’s settlement, secured by this Justice Department, is an important step in redressing that historic injustice,” the spokesperson said. “This Department of Justice will continue to pursue accountability at all levels for this wrongdoing. Such weaponization of the federal government must never be allowed to happen again.”
Flynn stressed his innocence in a statement on Wednesday, describing the federal prosecution as “a coordinated effort to pursue an innocent man as part of a broader campaign to undermine President Trump and his administration.”
“No amount of money or formal resolution can erase the pain caused by a prosecution that should never have been brought,” he said, but added that the settlement “marks a meaningful step toward righting a profound wrong.”
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Paula Reid contributed to this report.
The-CNN-Wire
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